


swift-flowing past and future

by bossymarmalade (maggie)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was somebody different in this place once before; perhaps it's time to be somebody different again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swift-flowing past and future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaydeefalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/gifts).



> standard foreword: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

"I really appreciate you doing this, Katara." Aang's voice, never very good at concealing anything (and somehow even less so with the loss of childhood exuberance) had been flush with gratitude, his grasp friendly around Katara's arm. "I know you and Zuko never really got along and all ...." He'd trailed off, having the grace to not put the rest of that thought into words, and Katara had simply shaken her head and patted his hand.

"Those days are behind us," she'd assured him. "The world's different now, Aang, and a lot of that is due to Zuko's help and cooperation. He's more than proven that he's just as committed to peace and harmony as the rest of us are."

"Right."

There had been an odd note to the way Aang had said that, but Katara hadn't thought about it further at the time. She probably should have.

\---

It's been a long time since Katara visited the Fire Nation. Her travels take her from pole to pole through the vast green Earth Kingdom and for the past three years she's mostly been in the Southern Water Tribe, working among the villages in the post-war upheaval. She's had no reason to go west; Aang's duties as the Avatar took them there in the beginning, when they'd still been fresh from their adventures and went everywhere together.

But each visit became more and more about Aang and Zuko having meetings to which nobody else was invited, and Katara wasn't Mai and wasn't highborn-bred to view this secrecy and exclusion as a necessity of statecraft. Eventually Aang started taking her only when there was a festival or official banquet she'd enjoy, especially if Sokka and Suki were going too. When she and Aang decided that maybe they shouldn't be together that way anymore, she'd had no reason to return to the Fire Nation at all.

So she's taken aback by the feeling she gets when she arrives at Jang Hui, where the blue-grey water still smells of strong steel and silver fish just as it had seven years ago with paint on her face and sludge on her toes. It's visceral, the sense of nostalgia, and Katara has learned to let these breathless moments flow through her without resisting as they increase with each passing year.

"You did good work here," she hears Zuko say next to her, and she takes a deep breath before opening her eyes. He's smiling slightly at her and it looks easy on his face now; he's lost the startled flicker in his eyes that he used to get whenever he was ambushed by a sweet emotion. "The Painted Lady, was it?"

"You shouldn't be disrespectful of the spirits," Katara says, somewhat ungenerously. She feels like ruffling his mannered royal politeness, but true to (his new) form Zuko's smile gets a little wistful and he says, "I never would. I've had my own experiences wearing their clothes."

He looks out over the Jang Hui without elaborating and she follows his gaze, taking in the firm banks and seemingly placid water. "I appreciate your coming out here to help with the river project," Zuko tells her, more formally. "Aang said that you're the best person to consult when it comes to conservation and the health of our waterways, and I want to do this right. From the start, and based on your recommendations."

She looks at him then, really _looks_ at him, and instantly regrets it because he's somehow even more handsome than he'd been when they were teenagers. He doesn't have that pinched, desperate look and now his jaw has squared, his eyes are bright and clear, his mouth is ... still more on the mean side than not, but in a more appealing way. Less hateful and more determined.

"This isn't going to be easy," Katara tells him, because as she gets older she finds herself acting more and more like Gran-Gran, wanting people to know upfront what they're getting themselves into so they don't all end up wasting their time. Sokka makes his Sokka-face at her and tells her maybe she should spend more time with the Northern Water Tribe, learn some of their airs and graces; Toph laughs and says it's about time Katara stopped giving herself airs and graces and got around to telling it like it is. Aang grins in that way he has that will always make her heart skip a little, the way that's endless loneliness cradled by boundless optimism, and suggests that Katara's got the balance just right.

Zuko, now; Zuko nods once with a deep bolstering breath, and Katara is suddenly aware of the yuzo-pepperwood scent of his state robes, the sandalwood ash smell that follows most firebenders. The warmth floods her, stoking a place deep in her belly that has been cold too long, and she realizes she wants to bite his smooth, imperious chin and taste that skin. Instead she blurts, "I never got the chance to try healing your scar." It sounds harsher out loud than she meant it to; all she can hear is the desire in her own voice and she winces.

His hand lifts to pass briefly over his eye and the scar there, and he seems almost surprised. Zuko huffs out a startled laugh and admits, "I'm ... glad you didn't." Katara raises her eyebrows, moving a little closer, and he goes on, "I think ... I needed to learn how to live with it. How to get accustomed to being me, even with the constant reminder, even with it marked on my face. If I'd gotten rid of it, then everything I'd gone through and all of the things I did would be erased with it. If there's anything that being friends with the Avatar has taught me, it's that we need to recognize and accept our pasts in order to do anything right in the future." Zuko stops there and laughs outright, delighted with the sound of his own hard-earned wisdom, and Katara can't help but smile back, putting her arms around him and squeezing tight. He slips a careful arm around her waist, and they look back out over the river.

"I'm glad it's not going to be easy," Zuko says. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something I wanted came easy." His fingers, strong and hot, press briefly into her hip and Katara feels a ripple of hunger go through her body.

"Well," she says. "Maybe by the end of this, we'll all get what we want."


End file.
